Head Choice?

[Shawn F.]

I have been trying to decide on which heads to buy for a sbc build for almost a year now. It's almost time for me to just finish this engine and put it into the car. First I will start with that I am building, what this engine is going into and what I am looking to get out of it...
The engine is a 355 that I pulled from a V8 S10 project I bought a few years ago. The engine had only around 200 miles on it but had crappy emissions heads on it (75cc's from an emissions truck crate motor of some sort). I pulled the heads to find out the pistons are TRW's (Speed Pro) L2256 .030 over Forged pistons. The pistons are supposed to have 9.72:1 compression ratio with 64 cc heads. Of course this all depends on how far down the piston is in the bore, gasket thickness, etc. As for how far down in the hole they are, I have no clue as I do not have the knowledge or tools to check this. Also I am not sure how well that compression would do on the street. The engine had a Comps Cam Magnum 270 cam in it which is too big for my needs.

Now for what I am looking to get out of the engine...
It's going into a 1963 Chevy II wagon which will be my daily driver and sleeper (grandma grocery getter). I want it to be comfortable, handle great but still smoke some local Mustangs and Camaros (ricer too). I am looking for a reliable street motor to get decent fuel mileage out of it but still have decent power. How much fuel mileage I dont know but the best I can without it being a dog of a motor. Yes, I understand that I can't have both power and mileage but I believe 330-360 HP is not asking for too much with a 355. The wagon is VERY light (lighter than a little tuner car) so that is a plus. I am looking to push about 330-360 HP if possible and running a Q-Jet carb, HEI distributor, low RPM torquey cam, etc. Now the part I am unsure of are the heads. I do know that a Vortec style head has it's benefits for power and I would like some kind of fast burn head. I had my mind set on a pair of cast iron Vortecs but started thinking about going to an aluminum head...

As for money and how much to spend, I do not have $1800-$2000 to spend on heads and this is why I was looking at Vortecs. Do they make an aluminum Vortec head that is reasonably priced? I was looking at these: http://www.skipwhiteperformance.com/detail.aspx?Item=3303-CYL
Only reason I am thinking aluminum is for weight savings. The car is already light with a factory inline 6 (currently has 327 that I am pulling for a T bucket project) but with a sbc that should shave some weight as well as an aftermarket front clip and then aluminum heads on top of that will help even more.
Anyways, any opinions and information would be GREATLY appreciated here! I am sorry for typing so much, I just wanted to put out as much info as possible here to explain what I have and what I am looking for. I hope I am not asking for way too much out of this 355 build.
Thanks!

 

[Malibu 361]

I think this would be better in another section .....BTW I have a brand new set of Brodix Race Rites im lookin to get rid of ASAP ..PM if interested ...

 

[lilbowtie]

Yes - you are.

 

[Mark 79 Monte]

There are a ton of head choices that will work for you. 350hp with a modern head mild 350 is not a hard target to get too. Look at Chevy ZZ4 heads along with heads in the 170 to 180cc from AFR, Dart, World and such. You are probably looking at about $1200 for a pair of assembled heads that will certainly run better then your smog heads.

 

[Shawn F.]

Mark, thanks for the information! Are the ZZ4 heads a fast burn type head? I have been told to run a fast burn Vortec type head to help achieve my goal here.

 

[chevy406]

if your looking for a 350 hp motor go with the zz4 heads, i had a pair on a 406 with a stock botom end, they made killer bottom end torque and thats it. i had no power on the top end, the fast burn heads are not the zz4 heads, from what ive read the fast burn heads are pretty decent. i know i will never own another set of zz4 heads unless im building a motor thats going to be used to pull tree stumps out of the ground. good luck

 

[chevy406]

well im sure i sound dumb now but i just read about the zz4 crate motor, and they refered to them as zz4 fast burn head i had a pair 6 years ago before they were called fast burn heads, if they are the same design as when i owned mine i wouldn't run them, if you want over 350hp. good luck

 

[chevy406]

i found an article on the zz4 heads off the superchevy.com

On the dyno
Proving the theory that the taller, more narrow intake ports were the key to the Vortec Bow-Tie heads' performance fell to McLaren Performance--a third-party vendor which spent more than 500 development hours and made nearly 110 independent dyno pulls on various engine combinations that included the new GMPP heads.

The test engine was a ubiquitous GM Performance ZZ4 crate engine--the seeming standard of Chevy crate engines. From the factory, it comes with 10:1 compression, a forged crank, cast pistons, and a steel hydraulic roller camshaft; with 0.474/0.510 lift specs and 208/221-degree duration specs. Aluminum cylinder heads are standard on the ZZ4 and feature 58cc chambers, 1.94-inch intake valves, and 1.50-inch exhaust valves. The valvesprings have a 1.5:1 ratio.

With the standard configuration, the ZZ4 is rated at 355 hp and 404 lb-ft of torque. A Hot Cam package, which includes a 0.485/0.490-lift and 245/254-degree duration cam and 1.6-ratio rockers, boosts horsepower by approximately 25 hp. We got a peek at the test sessions toward the end of the development cycle and we were granted looks at numerous dynamometer results. The test sessions included numerous combinations, including three different intake manifolds, five cylinder head designs, two camshafts, two different-ratio rocker arms, and two carb spacer heights.

The heads that were tested included the two versions of the Vortec Bow-Tie, as well as the GM's Vortec truck head, Fast Burn aluminum head, and the stock aluminum ZZ4 production head. When it came to the intakes, the stock ZZ4 dual-plane manifold was used, along with the Vortec single-plane and dual-plane manifolds.

Some tests were made with the stock cam and 1.5 rockers, while others were made with the GM hot cam and 1.6 rockers. A 650-cfm carburetor was used for all dyno sessions.McLaren also put examples of the new heads on the flow bench, producing some interesting results (see sidebar, "Fun on the Flow Bench").

Test results
The test results we received from McLaren showed average horsepower for the multitude of dyno pulls made with each engine configuration (i.e. stock ZZ4, ZZ4 with large-port Vortec Bow-Tie heads, etc.)

Baseline runs were made with the stock ZZ4 engine, including the stock cam, 1.5 rockers, dual-plane intake, and no carb spacer. In this guise, the ZZ4 averaged 328.5 hp. It made 335 hp with the truck heads and averaged 348 hp with both sets of Vortec Bow-Tie heads, as well as GM's aluminum Fast Burn heads. So, right off the bat, the iron heads were proving their worth. While we expected to see an increase in power, simply due to the Vortec Bow-Ties' increased capacity over the stock ZZ4 heads, we were intrigued to see that the new iron heads pretty much followed the power curve of the aluminum Fast Burn heads.

The Fast Burn head has the same combustion chamber size and valve sizes as the new iron Vortec Bow-Tie, yet the less-expensive--though heavier--iron heads delivered comparable performance

 

[Shawn F.]

Thanks for the info! I will most likely just run the Iron Vortec heads then since the only difference is in the weight (which would be nice to have aluminum for that very reason but the extra cost is too much). HP numbers do not mean a whole lot for me since it's going to be a daily driver and what I mostly need and want is low and mid range torque and to keep my RPM's at 2500 and below.

 

[attngtr]

I have a set of the Procomp 215 64cc 2.02 intake valves on a flat top 355. They are nice and would highly recommend them. Good deal for the money and they do all the final assy in house. They got my malibu down the 1/4 in 12.2 at 110. It had full interior and all.